Highway upgrade is only part of the traffic solution

I MOVED to the Sunshine Coast with my family in the early 1970s and still consider it my spiritual home.

After finishing school, I began working as a journalist for the Sunshine Coast Local and later the Sunshine Coast Daily.

I was driving 40,000km a year taking photos and doing stories around the region. I felt like I knew every bump in every road on the Sunshine Coast and those roads were bad.

The major link between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast was the old Bruce Hwy, past what is now Australia Zoo. It was one lane each way and congestion on weekends and school holidays was a major issue, with no alternative route.

The opening of the four lanes of the current Bruce Hwy between Beerburrum Creek and Caloundra Rd in 1985 was a big leap forward. It allowed a faster trip for Brisbane drivers to the Sunshine Coast and gave a boost to the tourism economy.

The Cooroy to Curra upgrade has been fundamental in resolving not just congestion issues, but serious safety concerns. For quite some time, this was the deadliest stretch of national highway in the country.

While the Bruce Hwy has seen several upgrades on the Sunshine Coast over the years, we still have a long way to go.

We're barely keeping up with the increase in traffic, congestion management and safety upgrades.

Ironically, my job now at RACQ has me looking at the highway in a different way. Instead of being stuck in traffic, I am now looking at what can be done to the solve the issue.

We need to look at heavy rail duplication between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane as a genuine commuter alternative. We then need to connect that heavy rail to the coastal strip and the major population centres such as Caloundra, through Kawana and into the new Maroochydore CBD. Widening the Bruce Hwy, making it six lanes from Caboolture to Caloundra and beyond, has to happen but it can't be the only solution. Widening the Sunshine Mwy between the Maroochy River and Coolum is another priority.

These projects will help but they need to be part of a masterplan for people movement in the decades ahead.

We can't afford to wait around and see if the existing road network will cope. It won't. We have to get the balance right between roads and public transport or we'll be damned to repeat the mistakes of our past.

This isn't a transport issue, it is a lifestyle issue and nowhere has better lifestyle than the Sunshine Coast.